BABIP: A novel approach to selecting fantasy All-Stars

It's All-Star Week, and that means Inspector BABIP gets to use players' batting averages on balls in play (BABIP) to pick his All-Stars for the first half. But can the members of this team keep up their stellar paces?

CATCHER

Joe Mauer, Twins - Talk about a revival. Fantasy owners always knew Mauer had top-end production for a catcher (even outside the one-year power binge), but few wanted to take the early-draft risk after Mauer played just 82 and 76 games the past two years.

Mauer heads into the All-Star Break with a BABIP of .371 and a .326 average. He has a career .344 BABIP and did manage to carry a .373 mark in 2009 when he hit .365. Not surprisingly, Mauer has his best home run-to-fly ball rate (HR/FB) since that year. Don't expect much of a drop off; Mauer is back.

FIRST BASE

Joey Votto, Reds - Will Votto be the first player in years to finish with a BABIP north of .400? The way he's seeing the ball, it's a real possibility. Votto has a .407 BABIP and .349 average to go with his wonderful .620 slugging percentage.

Votto has a career best 30.9% line drive rate and his HR/FB rate and strikeout percentage are both near his norms. The only metric that is significantly different is Votto's walk rate, which is actually up to career best 17.9%. Then again, would you want to pitch to him right now?

SECOND BASE

Jose Altuve, Astros - Neil Walker recently passed Altuve in BABIP by a few points, but Walker's average still sits at .280, whereas Altuve's is .304. Altuve also has twice as many stolen bases and nine more runs. And this comes from a guy relatively ignored in all drafts (22nd/23rd second baseman drafted on average).

Altuve's speed will not only help him maintain a high BABIP but also register a nice average at or above .300. It's not easy to find a cheap (see: no cost) 30 steals, but fortunately for his owners, Altuve is on pace to do just that.

SHORTSTOP

Alcides Escobar, Royals - Bet you were a bit surprised by this one. Then again, the SS position has been miserable for fantasy purposes this year. Here we are at the break and Escobar leads all shortstops by a large margin with a .372 BABIP and even leads in batting average at .311.

Toss in 13 stolen bases and decent run and RBI totals, and you have a SS providing top-10 value when he barely sneaked into the top 20 on draft day. Escobar has been remarkably consistent as well with BABIPs each month of .333, .383, .392 and .381.

THIRD BASE

David Wright, Mets - There is no question here, just like the All-Star Game NL starting third basem... wait, what? Pablo Sandoval?

At least the numbers can't lie. Wright is outpacing the next closest 3B by 26 points in BABIP (.385) and 24 in average (.352) ... overall, not just in the NL. Wright also has 11 HR, 56 RS, 59 RBI and nine SB. He isn't at the top of the conversation, but certainly belongs in the NL MVP debate. Too bad he won't have the starting nod in Kansas City because of some ballot stuffing.

OUTFIELD

Austin Jackson, Tigers; Mike Trout, Angels -- No one expected much out of Jackson, and even the best projections didn't have Trout doing this well. A-Jax thrived off a very high BABIP in 2010 (.396) but still only managed a .293 average.

After a disappointing 2011, nobody expected to see Jackson hitting .335 with a BABIP of .420. His line-drive rate is up to 19.5% after it dipped to 16.8% last season, and he's being helped by a 12.7 HR/FB rate. There is likely a bit of regression coming (BABIPs of .444, .442 and .524 in May, June, July – unsustainable!), but not enough to dismiss Jackson's Fantasy worth.

Trout isn't much of surprise, except that he wasn't supposed to be this dang good already. Since his promotion to the bigs, Trout is hitting .343 with a .398 BABIP, oh, and a league-high 26 steals. With a terrific line-drive rate of 25.1% and HR/FB rate of 16.9, Trout is mirroring his minor league numbers, and that is exciting. The sky is the limit for this kid.

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About Steve Gardner

Steve's been with USA TODAY in one form or another since 1993. He started
at USATODAY.com in 1996, becoming the website's baseball editor in 1999, and
has written the fantasy baseball column for Sports Weekly since 2006. Follow
him on Twitter: @sgardnerUSAT.